Make that Chernobyl x 100, if the Energy Department has its way with the resumption of producing
Plutonium 238 in the Idaho National Laboratory, near Idaho Falls.
Former Newsweek Editor-In-Chief William Broyles Jr. writes a guest commentary in the NY Times today that points out the risks involved in this change of policy.
Now comes the Energy Department, proposing to produce plutonium 238 outside Idaho Falls, Idaho, for unspecified national security purposes and possibly to power future deep-space missions. Plutonium 238 is one of the more lethal substances known to man (one speck can cause cancer), and its use to power space vehicles, with their demonstrated tendency to fail (Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Challenger, Columbia), is a highly debatable proposition. But the immediate issue is, has the Energy Department learned anything from NASA's experience with safety?
More below...
Broyles, continued:
Consider: the department wants to produce plutonium 238 in a nearly 40-year-old test reactor containing more than 30 times the amount of radioactive material estimated to have been released from Chernobyl. Unlike commercial reactors, the test reactor has no containment dome and is near the greater Yellowstone area, one of the most active earthquake sites in the world. Yet the Energy Department seems quite confident that these risks are all "allowables."
Broyles raises the safety failures at NASA and the Columbia disaster as reminders that failure comes "where we don't expect failure".
In a previous life, I lived in Idaho Falls, and worked at the INL on a training reactor. I have been a strong supporter of making nuclear energy the cornerstone of an energy independence policy but with aggressive safety standards.
This issue also raises broader concerns about nuclear proliferation and national security. The Energy Department will not elaborate on the precise use for the plutonium, but it must be military, the only use that prevents the U.S. from importing existing plutonium stores from Russia.
The recklessness of the BushCo regime and its GOP allies, (also reflected in the Energy Bill's rollback of restrictions on exporting weapons grade uranium--see Senator Feingold's diary on this) is unforgiveable. None of the lessons learned from 9/11 through the Iraq Debacle are getting through.
And as Broyles, who as screenwriter for the film Apollo 13 penned the line "Failure is NOT an option", points out, the confidence--nay arrogance--is selective.
Western politicians constantly argue that Washington bureaucrats with the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection Agency are out of touch with the people of the West.
But when the Energy Department is involved, these same governors and senators seem to believe that Washington bureaucrats miraculously become all knowing, perfectly competent and completely to be trusted with the health and safety of their constituents.
Perhaps they might think again about that one. As we've learned all too many times, failure is indeed an option.